


The Devoured City

by barnabusbarnabus



Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith), The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Body Horror, Novokribirsk is the equivalent of Atlantis, Personified Cities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barnabusbarnabus/pseuds/barnabusbarnabus
Summary: Novokribirsk was consumed, utterly, by the horror of the Darkling's creation. The Shadow Fold twisted more than just the people.-----An exploration of Paris Burning in the setting of the Grishaverse. A series of one-shots, with some semblance of an overarching plot once I get past the cities' births.
Relationships: Kribirsk/Novokribirsk
Kudos: 5





	1. Kribirsk

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Paris Burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/825130) by [thecitysmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecitysmith/pseuds/thecitysmith). 



Kribirsk had been born the usual way, for a Planned City, but for a very unusual reason. The Fold, the Unsea, whatever you wanted to call the lake of darkness that cut the country in two. The City was once a mere stopping point on the Vy, the main roadway from the capital to the sea, but they had the fortune (misfortune?) to be just far enough from the Unsea when it opened that the village that they once were survived. It became a staging point for the First and Second Armies of Ravka to enter the Fold and see what the Black Heretic had wrought. The soldier was a conscript of the First Army of Ravka, during the first incursion into the Fold to see what had become of those still in there when the Fold was pulled into being. He was stabbed and cut by the claws of the volcra, the monstrous children of the Unsea, but his sacrifice kept his home safe. Kribirsk became, then, a location of interest, and the King, against the most strenuous recommendations of Os Alta, his capital, Planned a City there. It would be an inland port, an exercise in contradiction, and it would have a twin on the fold's other side, which would be Novokribirsk. Two more sacrifices were needed, of course, and the King chose them well. The mother was a young and fervourous woman, willing to do anything for her kingdom, and she died with the satisfaction that her son would be raised well. (He was, and he would later be awarded some land for his mother's sacrifice and his service in the First Army. It was an estate that included a manor, which was called Keramzin.) The elder was a Squaller of some repute, who moved there on the King's orders, whilst his estranged wife crossed the Fold to the other city with his children. They died on that land, and their sacrifice sunk into the earth and mingled with that of the soldier, and the Fold disgorged the newborn City, half-grown already. They had the classic brown hair and deep blue eyes of the Ravkan people, and looked like a late teen. They looked upon the skiff docks and the inns and the forges, felt their twin in the back of their mind, and walked into their city to begin their work. Their people needed them. Why else would they have built them?

(Four centuries later, when Novokribirsk was annihilated and the Fold was gone, they asked themself the same question, and in the back of their mind heard soft singing.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanwork, and oh boy howdy did I pick a pair of fandoms to start off in. I love the Grishaverse, but there isn't much backstory for the cities of the place, is there? I tried my best though, so here it is.


	2. Ketterdam

Ketterdam was born, and burnt, and born again.

His first life was male, and he was known not only as Ketterdam but as Ghezen, god of profit and commerce; his children honored him daily, the greatest traders on the face of the planet. Old Ketterdam was proud of his city, of the fairness of his traders, the beauty of his docks, the gleaming trade capital of the world. Even so, he felt in his least-favoured districts that things were changing. Slowly, at first, contained still to the Barrel, but as old Barrels are wont to do it began to leak outwards. Then, of course, the fires came. They began in the Barrel, as most of Ketterdam's disasters (new and old) did, and by the time anyone important noticed no amount of Etherealki could put them out. Before the fire, the Barrel wasn't as big, the underworld not as thriving, but during the rebuilding the pleasure district spread like a stain on white cloth, and the vices it embodied spread further still, past the Lid and into the other districts. The Barrel had burst. Old Ketterdam saw the times changing, felt himself changing, and the next time the fires came he stepped in willingly. He chose rebirth over seeing his city fall into sin, and looking upon what it had become the other cities of Kerch could not quite blame him. 

New Ketterdam was born in the harbor, from the deaths of a thief, a thug and a whore. She never knew for sure that those were what birthed her, but none of them were in short supply in her Ketterdam. (She was right. An old solicitor with a side-business in fencing, a thug-for-hire who made a few too many enemies, and an ex-prostitute who had been forced out of the bordello.) She wandered the Staves for a while, looking upon her people, until the stadtwatch found her and brought her to the ivory towers and silvered lies of the Financial District's merchers. Looking upon them, she had a thought that many hundreds in the Barrel would echo, in the centuries to come; 

There are no good men in Ketterdam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite city in the entire Grishaverse, Ketterdam. Such sin, hidden by the Lid in the case of the Barrel, and by a veneer of civilisation in the Financial districts. I may have slightly butchered the New and Old city system for my own purposes, but this is a derivative work, and I'm very sorry to thecitysmith if they ever read this.


End file.
